This invention relates to the treatment of small animals with chemicals in aerosolized form to kill skin parasites such as fleas and ticks, and more particularly concerns a device for enhancing such treatment.
Killing or otherwise removing fleas and the like from pet and zoo animals, particularly small four-legged hairy or furry animals, has been a problem of long duration. Various insecticidal-type chemical compounds have been found to be effective. However, the specific manner of application of the chemical to the animal is important in terms of effectiveness, safety to the animal, and ease of treatment. Accordingly, chemical preparations in the form of soaps, dusting powders, dipping solutions, slow release collars and aerosol sprays have been developed and used.
Aerosol sprays have found particularly widespread popularity because of their ease of use. However, problems of overspray occur with resultant contamination of the environment adjacent the area where the animal is being treated. When the aerosol stream is held closer to the animal to avoid overspray, excessive and potentially harmful concentrations may be applied to localized areas of the animal, and certain areas of the animal may be missed entirely.
Recognizing the aforesaid problems in using aerosol sprays, animal enclosure bags have been proposed and used, such as the one disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,144,845. The bags prevent evaporative dissipation of the volatile insecticide chemicals away from the animal's coat, thereby retaining effective concentration of the chemicals for longer periods of time. Also, the confined retention of the volatile chemicals promotes their even diffusion throughout the animal's coat, thereby ensuring thorough treatment of the animal.
The bag of U.S. Pat. No. 4,144,845 is of relatively expensive construction, and is intended to be re-used repeatedly. Such re-use, however, entails difficult cleaning and sterilization procedures to ensure that the bag is not contaminated with viable eggs or larvae forms of insects.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide an animal enclosure bag of sufficiently low cost to be economically discardible following a single use.
It is another object of this invention to provide an animal enclosure bag as in the foregoing object-amenable to use in conjunction with aerosolized pesticide chemicals.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an enclosure bag of the aforesaid nature having sufficient adjustability to accommodate animals of different sizes.
These objects and other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description.